I have a few stories of my brush with WTO, thanks to my workplace of that time being at 6th and Stewart. Here is one:

I worked for a dotcom at the time as an HTML jockey. I had heard the rumors on the Internet — a movement to create civil disobedience on a scale larger than the J29 protests — and I knew that ground zero was going to be Westlake, two blocks or so from the office. So, I e-mailed the leadership of the dotcom, told them what I knew, and implored them to shut the office for one day — November 30. The response was that no, the office was going to be open, and I could always take paid time off if I didn’t think it was safe, but of course it was going to be safe and nothing was going to happen.

The weekend before, we went to Ikea to buy some new bookshelves. Of course, there was no way they were going to fit in my subcompact, so hey, why don’t you deliver them… on November 30?

Was it all planned? Absolutely. But the idea was that the bookshelves would arrive in the morning, and I could still work a full day, so I wouldn’t take paid time off.

By the time the bookshelves arrived, downtown was utter chaos, the buses weren’t running, and the tear gas was in the air. It was chaos at work as well. From what I heard, some of the same senior staff I e-mailed about the threat, the ones that poo-pooed by worries, were stuck overnight in the building lockdown.

You remember the video of the rioters looting that Starbucks? That was in the building I was in. There were also a number of consulates in there as well. To protect the consulate offices, the building management locked EVERY door out of the building, including the garage. There was no way out.

And oh, I never actually had to take a vacation day. No one ever made me do it.

Is there a lesson in all of this? Probably. But I just like the fact that the stuffy business suits were sleeping in their corner offices while I was at home watching the chaos on TV.

If you liked Buy Nothing Day, the Seattle/Tacoma Waste Free Holidays promotion might tickle your fancy. To encourage people to “give experiences instead of stuff,” one hundred and twenty-five participants will be offering discounts of 15 to 50 percent until December 31st.

Give the gift of bowling, massage, mountaineering, ballet, or ice hockey, and see if you can live a life free of wrapping paper. Besides, trust me: your mom does not want another scented candle set.

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I don’t know if it’s the weather or the spirit or the season or something new in the water, but the last week has been the time to turn yourself in if you’ve committed a crime.

Last week, in Tukwila, a man stepped forward to admit to shooting another guy in the face over drugs ten years ago [P-I]. No one aside from the shooter has any idea why he finally came forward, and he’s not telling.

Then, on Monday, an entirely different man admitted to “taking part in” child rape between 1998 and 2003 [Times]. This appears to have happened in a “religious home” on the Sammamish Plateau that housed members of a breakaway Catholic sect.

I completely approve of this trend (as though you cared), and encourage the members of our community to keep ‘fessing up–November’s almost over.

The most painful part of the story proclaiming our bookishness: the USA Today stock photo shows the WSU flag flying above the Space Needle.

Oh, Minneapolis. It’s time to take that smug look off your face. Last year, the citizens of St. Paul’s twin city were crowned the most literate of us all. But we matched your icy cold winters and raised with months and months of grey skies and regular rainfall and raised them a fancy new library to claim the bragging rights as 2005’s Most Literate City [usat].
In yet another random ranking, this one took a look at the sixty-nine largest cities in the country and judged them not on whether their citizens could read, but if the actually do. The rankings were based on six factors: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment and, Internet resources [ed: hey! that’s us. way to go team!].

With all of our new [mb], recently prettified [mb], and high-tech featured [mb] libraries, the recent opening of 826 Seattle, bookstores like Elliott Bay and the University Bookstore with blockbuster reading schedules, a giant bookseller (amazon) perched above our city, and tons of specialty shops and newsstands, it looks like we might be on track to be two time literacy champions. I can’t wait for the t-shirts and bragging rights.

So, are we actually reading, or did we just pull the wool over the judges eyes by looking studious while sipping cappuccinos at our neighborhood cafes. What are you reading and where did you get it?

Those of us on the course Sunday were grateful for yet another rain-free start at the Seattle Marathon and half-Marathon. In hindsight, most of us are probably also grateful that the cold snap was spared an extra day. Temperatures of 37 degrees were just a few degrees chillier than typical at the start, but being huddled among masses of hyped-up athletes keeps one warm while waiting for the gun to go off.
As if there was any doubt, Uli Stedl again took the win for this year’s run and smoked his competition with a finish time of 2:24:24 – a full 10 minutes ahead of the second place finisher and giving him a 7 of 7 winning streak. Sara Otepka took the win for the women with a time of 3:07:44. It was her first time on the Seattle course and her sixth marathon.(more…)